The Intern Life

[Pictured above are some fabulous fresh doctors out there saving lives and taking names.]

As it turns out, a large majority of the world is fairly unaware of the steps required to become a full-fledged, practicing physician. This fact has surprised me time and time again, regrettably, making me realize I have my own ignorance to address. Just because people have bodies and see doctors, doesn't necessarily mean they should know as much as I do about the medical field and the path to becoming a doctor. I've had this conversation several times with friends, and I work really hard to remind myself of everyone else's perspectives. I happened to grow up in a very medical family - it was the norm for me since the age of 6, maybe, that someone was missing on holidays because they had to work. The reality that this is now going to be my life is slowly sinking in.

So. For the purposes of setting the stage for what I'm sure will be several posts to come, here's a little run down of what I would refer to as: "The Journey to Doctoring"

1. Congrats! You've finished 4 solid years of college. Likely you were a dedicated (enough) student with ample leadership activities, volunteer work, grades, and MCAT score. You surely had a "busy" schedule with "no time to do anything" because of meetings and social activities. Everything is relative. We've all been there, and we are all here now in our mid to upper 20s laughing at our youthful selves. I won't delve much deeper into the details of that first huge and painful hurdle of getting into med school. For all intents and purposes, we will pretend that this step was easy. More on this another time. 
2. Four years of med school fly by. First you suffer through 2 years of pre-clinical work full of hyper speed information cramming and the unspeakable Step 1 exam. All of this followed by a (pseudo) light at the end of the tunnel called 3rd year where weekends don't exist and working 60-80hrs/week isn't that absurd, depending on the rotation. Finally, the world laughs at you in fourth year where rotations don't (really) exist and you blow all the fake student loan money you have on traveling across the country to interview at residency programs. All of this time, energy, and effort only to ultimately learn where you'll spend the next 3-7 years of your life via an algorithm that functions eerily similarly to sorority recruitment. LOL. Cue Match Day, the equivalent of the celebratory Bid Day, when you and all your friends (and family members often) get to open an envelope filled with a simple sheet of paper determining your future. T-minus 3-ish months for you to pick up your whole life and move somewhere, and suddenly you find yourself a cool 7+ hours away from the nearest friend or family member you know.
3. You've graduated med school! You're a doctor now! But wait...are you though? After med school they don't just let you go out into the world and go buck wild writing prescriptions and doing surgeries. Every new doctor has to go through some form of Residency training (lasting anywhere from 3-7ish years) to actually figure it all out. Think of this as on-the-job training. I think I best related this to Parker's life as the student teaching portion of his grad school experiences. Gone are the days of lecture halls and tests (though we still have plenty of tests and lectures - now called "conference" for reasons still unknown to me). In come the days of long, long, long work hours and real, though not quite doctor-sized, paychecks. Universally, the first year of your residency is affectionately called Intern Year. Wait, why are you an intern? I thought you were a resident? Yes. It's confusing. I don't have a good explanation for it either. What I can say is that for me at least, my intern year in an Anesthesia residency involves little to no anesthesia. I spend a month at a time with different specialties (medicine, pediatrics, surgery) learning the tricks of the trade - basically learning to actually be a doctor. I do this for a year, and, barring I survive (this is sort of a joke but not really...), my next 3 years of residency will focus solely on Anesthesia. 

But don't be fooled by any semblance of confidence I might try to put out there - I'm really quite anxious over here. I've written a few notes and put in a few orders, and there is nothing quite like that "drunk with power" feeling of uncertainty that I can actually sign my orders, my notes without someone looking at them first. [Those not in medicine: rest assured there are about 1000 different safety nets for our patients of course.] Here I set the stage for documenting what will surely be a wild ride of stress and emotion, and I'm hoping blogging about it all will somehow help me cope with that. More to come!